Southern California residents who have suffered through days of hot and muggy weather conditions may soon get some relief. A turn in airflow and slightly cooler temperatures and lower humidity may be just around the corner, said meteorologist Carol Smith of the National Weather Service station in Oxnard. "Today we're looking at mid-90s away from the coast ... tomorrow kind of edging down to the mid-80s," she said. "It will still be kind of humid, but the trend is in the direction of drying as we get less moisture coming up in the area.

In my April 19 column , I weighed in on the latest round in the "mommy wars": the firestorm ignited when Democratic pundit Hilary Rosen accused Ann Romney of "never working a day in her life"; a statement President Obama then condemned, saying, "There is no tougher job tougher than being a mom. " By way of exploring the ways in which Americans are obsessed with and define themselves according to circumscribed notions of work, I submitted that...

TAMPA, Fla. - Appearing on a couple of morning network television shows Friday, potential First Lady Ann Romney sounded like she wanted her 12 minutes back. That would be the 12 minutes of prime television time the night before that her husband's handlers handed to movie icon Clint Eastwood just before the climax of the Republican National Convention. Eastwood, 82, turned the 720 precious seconds into a meandering walkabout through his (not entirely cogent) political beliefs. And Romney, in return, damned him with faint praise.

LONDON - Mitt and Ann Romney arrived in London showing their U.S.A. colors as they prepared to attend the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, but given the tight security encircling them, it seemed unlikely they would be spotted by many expatriate or English fans outside of their public events. The hotel where the Romneys are staying, which overlooks Hyde Park and is hosting many top Olympics officials, was a virtual fortress of security Wednesday afternoon, shortly after the Romneys arrived.

Some investments listed in Mitt and Ann Romney's 2010 tax returns - including a now-closed Swiss bank account and other funds located overseas - were not explicitly disclosed in the personal financial statement the GOP presidential hopeful filed in August as part of his White House bid. The Romney campaign described the discrepancies as “trivial” but acknowledged Thursday afternoon that they are undergoing an internal review of how the...

Everyone else seems to have calmed down. But I'm still shaking my head at the mom Olympics that competed with the real ones this political season. First, former State Department official Ann-Marie Slaughter in the Atlantic magazine told us we can't have it all. Then Marissa Mayer, the new head of Yahoo, declared she'd work through her brief maternity leave. The usual chorus of voices rose to defend or attack each woman. The mommy wars, yawn. I just can't get worked up over them anymore.

Brent Kroeger pores over nasty online comments about stay-at-home dads, wondering if his friends think those things about him. The Rowland Heights father remembers high school classmates laughing when he said he wanted to be a "house husband. " He avoids mentioning it on Facebook. "I don't want other men to look at me like less of a man," Kroeger said. His fears are tied to a bigger phenomenon: The gender revolution has been lopsided. Even as American society has seen sweeping transformations - expanding roles for women, surging tolerance for homosexuality - popular ideas about masculinity seem to have stagnated.

November 17, 2008 | Nicholas Riccardi, Riccardi is a Times staff writer.

In June, leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints made a fateful decision. They called on California Mormons to donate their time and money to the campaign for Proposition 8, which would overturn a state Supreme Court ruling that permitted gay marriage. That push helped the initiative win narrow passage on election day. And it has made the Mormon Church, which for years has striven to be seen as part of the American mainstream, a political target.

Cleanup and confession were the dominant Olympic themes emanating from here Thursday as the Salt Lake Organizing Committee named a new president and an American member of the International Olympic Committee admitted giving a job to the son of an IOC member who resigned last month because of the bribery scandal.

There are three possible outcomes in the Iowa caucuses Tuesday night, barring a surprise of enormous proportions. All are good for Mitt Romney. Scenario One: Romney wins : This, obviously, would be the best result for the former Massachusetts governor. Whether it's a narrow victory, as the polls suggest, or larger than expected, as some in his camp are privately predicting, a win is a win. It would strongly position Romney to accomplish something that no non-incumbent Republican presidential candidate has ever done: sweep the first two contests, in Iowa and New Hampshire, back to back.